Coast Guard conducts search for man overboard in Pacific

HONOLULU — The Coast Guard is searching for the master of a freight ship reported overboard approximately 60 miles east of Wake Island Sunday.

Watchstanders at the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center were notified at approximately 6 p.m. Saturday, regarding a 49-year-old male Polish national who was reported overboard from the 622-foot freighter Toscana.

The master was last seen at approximately 8 p.m. Friday. Twelve hours passed before the ship realized the crewmember was missing.

An HC-130 Hercules airplane crew from Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point was launched Saturday and is staging out of Wake Island to conduct the searches.

The ship retraced its route to search for the missing crewmember, but has continued on to its next port of call in Yokohama, Japan due to fuel limitations.

The Coast Guard is searching for additional vessels in the area that could assist in the search.

The Coast Guard regularly coordinates with DoD, commercial vessels that are part of the AMVER program and international partners to conduct searches in the Pacific where extreme distances often limit the resources immediately available to respond. The 14th Coast Guard District area of responsibility encompasses more than 12.2 million square miles of the Central and South Pacific.

AMVER, sponsored by the Coast Guard, is a unique, computer-based, and voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea. With AMVER, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond.

Weather conditions on scene are winds of approximately 15 mph, seas of 8 feet and a water temperature of approximately 81 degrees.